Wednesday, May 22, 2013

THINKING OUT LOUD

Sometimes I think about things past and present and there are times when I'd like to share my thoughts and as I can't always burden himself with what I'm thinking I thought I would burden you with them instead!!! How self-indulgent of me to think anyone would be interested but here goes anyway.

While lying in bed this morning (I was being self-indulgent there too as this damned cold thingie won't leave me) I was listening to the truck picking up the wheelie bins and taking our rubbish away. It was then I began to think back to when I was a child when we had just the one quite tiny metal bin, with lid, that used to sit out of the way in our back garden. In those days the 'garbo' used to leave his truck, walk down our side path with his own bin on his shoulder and tip our rubbish into his bin and then deposit said rubbish in his truck.

In later years we had to take our rubbish bins out (by then I think they were solid plastic bins and possibly a little larger than the metal bins, and put them, I think, by the front gate/fence so the man didn't have to spend so much time walking into people's back gardens to collect the rubbish. That probably saved problems with dogs and leaving gates open etc., and I feel the unions may have also had a hand in that decision. The other thing that crossed my mind when thinking about all that and those quite small bins was the fact that they were seldom full!

These days we have two bins....one for the recyclable rubbish (or at least they try and tell us they recycle all that stuff) and the other (in our area) for anything that can be composted. I believe some areas actually have three different bins. We have a list of what can go in that green bin and I can't help laughing when I read it because I'd never think of putting toothbrushes or toothpaste tubes in our own compost at home, plus several other items I can't help wondering about. If you have doubts about what goes into which bin you can ring and ask those that supposedly know but even they don't know all the answers so it is no wonder we householders are at times quite bewildered by all this modern thinking. The yellow topped bin is easy....you put everything in there that doesn't go into the green bin. : )

All the above led me to two separate thoughts, which were:

1. How come two people (such as us) can these days produce so much rubbish whereas many years ago households could comfortably fit their weekly rubbish into one quite small bin, and

2. How much worse off are the breweries because of the modernisation of garbage collection methods? My parents didn't do it and I'm not sure whether we did it either but many, many people always used to leave out a couple of bottles of beer for the garbo every Christmas week. Once mechanisation took over the men no longer got out of their trucks so consequently....no beer. Even if only every third household in every street left out two bottles of beer at Christmas, how many bottles of beer would that amount to throughout the whole country? I won't even try to do those maths but it gave me food for thought re the breweries. Did they suddenly recognise a dramatic drop in sales? What do you think?

8 comments:

I would love to have 'green waste bin'. We are not allowed to put garden waste or lawn clipping into either bin, but are expected to take them to the dump ourselves. Which of course assumed that everyone has a car - which is a mistake.We have two bins. The recycling bin takes paper, cardboard, bottles, cans and hard plastics and the other takes general rubbish. The general rubbish is collected weekly (and ours is usually fairly empty) and the recycling is collected fortnightly. And ours is full each time.And yes, we put out beer and cake for the garbo's at Christmas. Not now though.I do hope your cold is at least starting to get better.

Thanks EC I expect this cold IS getting better. As they say if you take something for it then it will be gone in two weeks and if you do nothing it will be gone in a fortnight. I am half way through so am probably definitely on the mend.Our recycle bin used to only be collected fortnightly but as they were usually full to overflowing our council decided weekly pickups were necessary. I guess they pick up the green compost bin weekly as you can put foodstuffs in it which could become a bit smelly. I freeze any food scraps and only put them in that bin late the night before it is collected. In that green bin we now put grass and small cuttings from shrubs etc., as well as lawn mowings (we put them on our own compost heap of course) and it is then supposedly all composted (including toothbrushes etc. lol). That bin, as is yours, contains very little each week. I also put shredded paper in it as well which I just realised I should be putting on our own compost heap....silly me!!Years ago Don Burke made the comment that he thought all "recycling was rubbish" as he obviously felt what we were told wasn't completely true. Perhaps he knew more about it that we ratepayers do?Isn't assumed these days that everyone has a car? Too bad for those that don't own one!!

Oh Mimsie your last line has me laughing and I truly needed a good laugh today thank you.We have garbage pickup and the man still picks it up and dumps it we pay $2 a bag for the service, two days later we have a recycle program and the man or woman sits it in front of my house into bins in the truck then carries on. In this country I don't think we could put beer out as it is illegal:) We live in the countryside where in the old days they used to pitch garbage into the fencelines then plant a lilac bush in it. Everytime I see a lilac bush I think of the garbage or possibly treasures that are strewn about. Thanks for the laugh. Love your thoughts this morning. Hug B

Buttons I am so glad I gave you reason to laugh when you apparently needed it.I am not sure how people in our farming areas dispose of rubbish and that could be interesting to research.Your comment about pitching garbage reminds of my first husband's grandmother (born 1880 here in Perth) who would point out to me that "those posh people that live the other side of Walcott Street don't realise they live where the night carts were emptied". She made me laugh when she said that and I would imagine the gardens of those houses would grow rather splendidly with all 'that' under them.

Your bins look just like ours except we have THREE...compostable/recyclable/rubbish. The green one looks to be about the size of yours and the other two are monsters about four times that size. We often say the same thing..."how do we produce so much garbage". I put it down to packaging. There is so much more of it now. I remember my grandmother having just the one metal bin. She saved all boxes and used them on her counter (one a day) to put her kitchen garbage in. At the end of the day the box went into the bin.

My word you are well catered for when it comes to rubbish removal. Our wheelie bins are quite large and would probably be about chest high (on me anyway).We buy so much in packets and tins these days compared with 'way back then' when foods were cooked nearly all from raw ingredients. Probably tasted better too, apart from the fact that fats such as lard and dripping were used. Times sure have changed and in some cases for the better perhaps?P.S. We also have annual bulk verge collections....one for green rubbish such as prunings etc., and the other for household goods.

We have a couple of 'yard waste' pickups a year...the large household goods pick up died out...now we have what is referred to as the neighbourhood garage sale. You put out your unwanted stuff and people can drive by and take it.

People here drive by and take things from our roadside household junk collection but it is frowned upon by the authorities although they do little about it. They shouldn't mind as it saves them a lot of work! I never fail to be amazed by the things that people actually take.

About Me

I am 86 years of age, having been born in 1932. I am a wife, mother, grandmother, great-grandmother and a bit of an all round twit. Over the years I have done quite a lot of family genealogy and unearthed some family secrets which has been great fun.
I am married with a great husband (second time around has worked for me); I have a daughter and a son, four granddaughters and two grandsons, and three fantastic great-granddaughters plus a lovely step-great-granddaughter in Alaska whom I have never met although I have seen her on Skype. I have had two total hip replacements (June '08 and January '09) but as I have an extremely bad back (neck to tail) and a knee that won't behave, I still can't get about very much so am a stay at home. Maybe that is why I decided to take this drastic step and begin my own blog. Will I keep it up? Goodness alone knows, only time will tell but here goes anyway. I don't have a lot of followers but those I do have are very precious to me.